Art of the Deal: Leon Black Dabbles in Works on Paper

Financier Leon Black, who has become known as an art collector, is buying one of the world's premiere art book publishing houses, Phaidon Press Ltd.

Mr. Black, the chief executive of private-equity firm Apollo Global ManagementAPO-0.48% LLC, is paying an undisclosed price for Phaidon, a London-based company that publishes about 60 new books a year, including cookbooks, and has a backlist of nearly 1,900 titles.

Phaidon was started in 1923 in Vienna as an art book house; the owners later moved to London to escape the Nazis. It has been owned since the early 1990s by British entrepreneur Richard Schlagman.

Digital technology is transforming the publishing industry, even for art books, which account for a small segment of the publishing industry. Robert Abrams, publisher of independent art book publishing house Abbeville Press, described the art book publishing business today as "very challenging."

But many of Phaidon's coffee-table books are about as far as you can get from a $9.99 e-book best seller. Its current catalog includes a $750 two-volume limited edition book featuring the work of photographer Joel Meyerowitz. Another hardback features the work of minimalist painter Agnes Martin and lists for $165. Phaidon does, however, have some pop-culture paperbacks, such as its Masters of Cinema series, for $9.95 each.

While he is famous in the business world for his deal making, Mr. Black is primarily known in the art world as a collector of works on paper, including such artists as Raphael, Paul Cezanne and Egon Schiele. Earlier this year he paid nearly $120 million for an 1895 pastel of Edvard Munch's "The Scream."

Richard Feigen, an art dealer who has dealt with Mr. Black, said the financier's breadth of collecting interests and his "deep pockets" could help support books on artists who may be historically significant but aren't household names.

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